' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: June 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The difference between the gay marriage movement and adoptee rights

Lorraine
Jane, while I personally applaud all that you say (see previous blog*), in New York and New Jersey I believe we have tried everything we can do at this point--until huge numbers of adoptees and fellow travelers (first parents, adoptive parents, friends and relatives) come out in numbers. Big numbers. Like the gays did for the marriage equality bill. But here are some of the disparities between our population (of first mothers and adoptees with a small smattering of adoptive parents) and the gays:

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Gays have political clout; bastards don’t. Lessons from New Jersey and New York.

Jane
Last week New Jersey’s Governor, Chris Christie, sank a bill which would have allowed adoptees to access to their original birth certificates. The New York legislature tabled a similar bill after New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent a lobbyist to Albany to oppose it. Meanwhile the New York legislature passed a bill to allow single sex couples to marry, a measure which would have been unheard of a few years ago.

What Does Christie's veto really mean?

Lorraine, when smiling
Governor Chris Christie's veto of the adoptee reform bills to give adopted people their original birth certificates memo is a suggestion that goes back to the Senate for POSSIBLE passage next session. It sets up an intermediary system, plain and simple, with all the power in the hands of the birth parents who wish to stay in the closet. Here is the press release language:

Saturday, June 25, 2011

CHRISTIE Vetoes Adoptee Rights in New Jersey and other legislative news

Lorraine
Deflated. That's how I felt when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's threw out the adoptee-rights bill (some 30 years in the making) with a massive, unconscionable, cave-to-the-closet statement on Thursday:
"The decision of any biological parent to seek adoptive parents for a child is an enormously complicated choice. The emotional struggle preceding any adoption is unlike any other step facing a parent, with ramifications for the mother, father and child that will endure throughout their lives."

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Jessica Lost: The meaning of motherhood when adoption steps in

While my hand is still incredibly weak, and typing anything is laborious, I asked Linda, a first mother who used to blog regularly at First Mother Forum, to review a new first/birth mother memoir, (Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood). See sidebar for news re legislation in New York and Rhode Island--and of course, New Jersey. --lorraine
Linda's review:

Since my  five-year, on and off roller coaster reunion ended six years ago,  I moved on without my daughter—again—

Sunday, June 19, 2011

First Fathers Matter

Jane

It’s easy to understand why first fathers think they don’t matter to their children. The fact is that they do matter in spite of efforts by law makers to obliterate them. Many states prohibit vital statistics registrars from including the names of unmarried fathers on birth certificates unless both parents file affidavits of paternity, something they are likely unaware of.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Jennifer Lauck's "Found" reveals the painful truth of adoption

Jane
“This is your mother,’ my mother’s voice is weak and broken, a frail warbling. ‘I want you to know not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you.’” Thus begins 44-year-old Jennifer Caste Lauck’s reunion with her mother Catherine as recounted in her new memoir, Found.


As she hears Catherine’s voice, Lauck feels "a rise of love so pure and utterly familiar. It is the same feeling I have for my children, which began sprouting the moment I knew I was pregnant with them.…I know I have been waiting--for my true mother, for Catherine—in order to finally release this universal love in the other direction. Love has always been in my heart waiting for the right person to trip the code.”

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Want to "star" in reality TV? Sign up to give your baby up

Lorraine
Decry the adoption culture all day long, but from the Adoption Option (see sidebar) to a casual comment the other evening about adopting a child instead of raising a chimp in one's home (who later goes berserk and chews up a neighbor's face), it's with us everywhere. Today's New York Times has a story about gay adoption and how it is on the rise. That story featured Matt and Ray Lees of Worthington, Ohio, who adopted eight

Monday, June 13, 2011

Cultivating a Culture of Adoption

Jane

“Adoption is the natural result of our redemption.” I came across these words when I Googled “Culture of Adoption” looking for follow-up materials to my article “Does Adoption Run in Families?. The words came from an article by Carolyn Curtis, “Cultivating a Culture of Adoption”* in the Presbyterian Church in America’s web magazine.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Does adoption run in families?

Jane

Are adoptees more likely than other mothers to surrender their children for adoption? In 1966, a new social worker at the Florence Crittenton Home in San Francisco told me that many of the pregnant girls at Crittenton were adoptees, hinting that perhaps adoption was not the panacea for unwed pregnancy that it was made out to be. However, she added, other workers assured her there was no correlation between being adopted and subsequently giving up a child; it only seemed that way.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Demand for babies leads to adoption abuses

It is the rare adoptive parent who, after adopting from overseas, can wrap her mind around the idea that "her" baby might have been stolen, sold or bartered to fill the huge demand for adoptable infants in wealthy nations, of which she herself was a part.